Why the Democrats Are Losing Ground As Obama Is Gaining It
While the President is off being the leader of the free world and trying to restore prosperity at home, someone needs to manage the blind trust of the Democratic Party before its assets dwindle like shares of Citigroup. President Obama's approval ratings have continued to break records, and with good reason. In less than 3 months, he has already proven himself remarkably capable as a leader, in getting a stimulus package passed (while learning some hard lessons about splitting the difference in policy with the people who created the mess); steadfastly refusing to jettison health care, energy, and education reform from his budget in tough economic times; beginning to heal the deep wounds left by his predecessor in the U.S.'s relationship with the rest of the world through both his mastery of foreign affairs and his emotional intelligence as diplomat-in-chief; and even signaling his intention to take on comprehensive immigration reform. All of this has happened as Republicans have seemed increasingly impotent, ideologically inflexible, and oppositional, none of which endears them to anyone but the 30% who still think Bush was a great president (and apparently remain off their medication).
Yet at the same time, something else is happening under the radar: the fortunes of Democrats more generally are starting to wane. March was a good month for Barack Obama but a bad month for the Democratic Party. As the latest Rasmussen polls show, in March the percent of voters who consider themselves Democrats dropped by 2 percent--four times the rate of decline among Republicans (even as the Republicans were publicly flailing, producing numberless budgets, and unwittingly branding themselves as the party of old ideas and the party of "no"). More ominous, the margin of voters supporting a Democrat over a Republican in a generic ballot for Congress dropped to its lowest point since both the Iraq War and the economy had clearly gone south by 2006: one percent (40 vs. 39%).
So how could it be that President Obama's standing in the polls is holding steady or improving while Democrats' standing in the polls is falling? And does it matter, so long as he is able to get his agenda passed through a heavily Democratic House and Senate?
Let's start with the second question first. It does matter. The President's ability to stay on the path he has charted requires not only Democrats holding or increasing their majorities in 2010 but on their holding onto public support for sweeping change. It also requires moderate Democrats and those from conservative states and districts to feel comfortable voting for new spending, and likely a second stimulus package, knowing that they will be attacked in the next election with the familiar refrains of big-government tax-and-spend liberals (if not socialists).
And as for the first question, the paradoxical popularity of the new President while the fortunes of his party are waning, not only makes sense but is predictable from an understanding of the psychology of public opinion and "branding." Any marketing executive will tell you that a good product is certainly a big help for sales, particularly if the competition is producing lemons. That's the situation we have now in American politics, where the Democrats are producing solutions where Republicans manufactured problems, and where the Republicans are now trying to re-sell "pre-owned" ideological vehicles that have a bad habit of running into ditches.
But the best products fail without good branding. In politics, you don't win on ideas alone. Comprehensive energy reform was a no-brainer after OPEC began embargoing oil 35 years ago, but the percent of our energy we are importing from overseas has only skyrocketed since then, and Americans were buying Hummers until gas hit $4.00 a gallon. Health care reform made good sense in 1993, but last I looked, it hasn't happened. Successful branding requires two things: creating positive associations to your own brand, and differentiating it from competing brands. In politics, that means offering voters a clear, memorable, emotionally compelling narrative about your party's core principles, while presenting them with an equally clear, memorable, and evocative story about the other party that would not make anyone want to be associated with it. If there were ever a time Democrats could offer both stories, this is it.
But the failure of Democrats to brand themselves has been a perennial problem since the breakdown of the New Deal coalition in the 1970s, and it remains a major problem today, leaving Republicans the opportunity, once they get their ideological chops back, to start branding both parties again, as they have for the better part of thirty years. Democrats stand for spending our way out of a looming Depression--a sound policy when no one else has the money or chutzpa to spend or invest--but how does that differ from the fiscal irresponsibility with which Ronald Reagan branded the party of "tax and spend" 30 years ago? Democrats stand for shifting to clean, safe 21st century sources of energy rather than relying on the fossil fuels of the last two centuries, but then why is the Secretary of the Interior waxing poetic about expanded offshore drilling?
It's hard for people to hear your message when you aren't speaking. I suspect few Americans even know that Governor Tim Kaine is the new DNC chair, while his RNC counterpart, Michael Steele, is at least busy publicly humiliating himself. And the President has inadvertently chosen to keep his popularity to himself. Whereas Bill Clinton rebranded himself--and by extension, his party--as a "different kind of Democrat" than the voters had repeatedly rejected in national elections, President Obama has branded himself as above partisanship--as the Un-Democrat. That may be a laudable goal--the same laudable goal, in fact, that the Founders had in mind for the Presidency--until President Washington, who won the office by universal acclamation, chose to step down, at which point partisan politics erupted, and we have been largely a two-party nation ever since.
Perhaps President Obama will succeed where Adams and Jefferson could not, and America will become not only a post-racial society but a post-partisan one. But if he does not succeed in turning a broken economy around substantially by the summer of 2010 and reminding the American people on a regular basis (repetition is essential psychologically, neurologically, and empirically to branding) that he and his fellow Democrats are trying to pull the nation out of the ditch the Republicans left us in by the side of the road, his administration will gradually become associated in voters' minds with the economic crisis he inherited, and he will find himself working with a Congress far less friendly to progressive reforms in two years.
Under similar circumstances, FDR trumpeted the failures of the Republican leadership and ideology that created the Great Depression while still managing to unite a terrified nation around not only his own charismatic presence but around New Deal reforms--reforms he could never have enacted if he had not contrasted the failed ideology that had led the nation over the economic cliff with the radically different solutions he and his party were offering. Roosevelt's consistent branding of the Republicans as inflexible ideologues at the same time as he showed what progressive, pragmatic action and Democratic leadership could offer led to a political realignment that lasted 40 years.
That is not President Obama's style. He prefers to say that mistakes "were made" (but not by whom). He is comfortable attacking "greed" as long as he doesn't have to attribute it to anyone in particular. (He did fire one man in Detroit for the failings of the American auto industry, but he retained all the corrupt, greedy, and incompetent executives on Wall Street who made it impossible for anyone to get a loan to buy a car.)
The hope, of course, is that voters will see improvements in their lives and connect them to the party in power even if it doesn't make terribly strenuous efforts to take credit for those improvements. And perhaps that will translate to a shift in partisan affiliation that will sustain the President's agenda long enough for it to work or even beyond. But it is a risky strategy to refuse to brand the other side for the problems they created and to refuse to brand your own side for the solutions you offer and the principles that underlie those solutions. The President often speaks of principles, and in so doing has taken Democratic rhetoric to precisely where it needs to be, in the realm of values (as in his stirring lines about parents turning off the television set and reading to their kids when talking about education reform). But the average American associates those principles with Obama, not with the Democratic Party, because Democrats outside the Oval Office remain long on policies and short on clearly, colloquially stated principles.
It may well be that this President is temperamentally unwilling, unable, or uninterested in speaking unpleasant truths about people who did unpleasant things to a lot of people. And it may be that that's a good thing. Our politics have certainly been unpleasant for a long time, and he's trying to change that.
But the reality is that millions of Americans are out of work, and most hard working Americans have lost nearly half of their wealth, and many their homes, because of the way George W. Bush and the radical Republican ideologues who enabled him ran the government--and ran it into the ground. The reality is that we had a surplus when Bill Clinton left office, and the only reason President Obama inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit that now constrains him is that George W. Bush and the radical Republicans believed in handing out suitcases full of cash to their wealthy friends with no strings attached and no transparency. Personally, I think that bears saying, and I think it particularly bears saying every time those same Republicans preach fiscal discipline, heap scorn on government "bailouts" they both necessitated and engineered, or offer their quasi-religious answer of "the free market" to every problem the market has created or failed to solve, from the crisis in the housing industry and the lack of regulations on Wall Street that took down our economy (and the world economy along with it) to the fact that most working Americans are now afraid of changing jobs for fear of losing their health insurance. Republican politicians would certainly be a little less quick to step up to the microphone if they knew that every time they talked about fiscal discipline, a Democrat would be there to remind them that they were the ones who went on a 6-year spending spree with our children's money and then handed the better part of a trillion dollars out to Wall Street bankers and speculators, sacrificing the American taxpayer at the altar of their free-market extremism.
It may be that the President is not the right messenger for this message (although FDR had no trouble being both an inspirational and transformational leader while also leading his party, and the Republicans became the "Party of Lincoln" after the gangly leader from Illinois not only said a few choice things about those who wanted to hang onto their slaves but actually sent an army after them). And it could be that he is right to stand above the fray. It could also be that House and Senate Democrats need to be more forceful with the media about covering their statements, since their leadership has been less reluctant to talk in partisan tones.
But someone needs to be in the fray other than the GOP. The worst thing to be in politics is silent, because it allows the other side to shape public sentiment uncontested. It wouldn't hurt to have a Southern voice like Tim Kaine's behind a megaphone with a "D" written on it. But whether it's Kaine or someone else with credibility and charisma, somebody needs to start saying what Democrats and Republicans stand for other than Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, and Richard Shelby. That's a lesson we should have learned a long time ago.
In politics, there is nothing so deadly as silence.
Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation."
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The Democrats are losing ground because the public IS turning against this overspending and lack of accountability. We elected Obama to change Washington but we still have the spending spree Bush gave us. If Bush's spending was bad, then adding another $4.8 Trillion to the debt in less than a year is the same level of incompetence.
If you believe Pelosi and Reid will follow behind Obama for 4 years, you do not know Pelosi and Reid. Both are already moving away from Obama on many spending bills and in 2012 Obama may win his seat back but the democrats will not be holding a large majority if they still have it. The Democrats have to cut spending by at least 30% in EVERY budget or they risk being the same problem that Bush was. If you were about "change" then start doing it. Overturning the Mexico City Policy, talking with Iran, wimping out over North Korea, needing to be prodded to take out the pirates, passing hundreds of millions of pork on a bail out bill that will not be spent before 2010 are NOT actions of change, they are actions of ignorance and the American people are seeing right through the campaign speeches and will not be so kind. Since November 2008 the GOP has increased its Congressional stature by 3 seats, 4 now with Tedisco leading in NY and if things do not change, CT will have a GOP Senator and Reid might be unemployed.
You can change things - but you can't erase the corruption of Dodd. If CT voters are thinkers he'll be gone. He never had conservatives, but he lost a lot of his base with his special loans, AIG contributions, GSE contributions, and his addition to the big spending bill that locked in the AIG bonus plan.
I think he'll survive. I don't think Connecticut is capable of electing a republican at the federal level.
If CT voters are thinkers, they will recognize that the allegations of corruption against Sen. Dodd are right-wing propaganda. There was nothing improper about his mortgages or campaign donations. The only thing he has to regret is allowing himself to be persuaded to withdraw his amendment that would have barred the bonuses. He has a long and distinguished career in the Senate, and significant seniority. If CT voters didn't turn Lieberman out, they aren't likely to turn on Sen. Dodd.
Dems are losing ground while Obama gains. Hardly a surprise: The President is a leader. Neither the Senate Majority "Leader" nor the Speaker of the House have the faintest chops for leadership. Their talent seems to be political survivorships in their respective election venues.
Understand! The State of Nevada with less population than Los Angeles sends a guy to the Senate who becomes a leader by living longer than his colleagues. Some way to run a country.
Remember when Lyndon Johnson a Senate neophyte was made Majority Leader? He had talent and the chops to use it.
The Democratic congress has voted with Bush too many times. Now Obama needs their help to make the vital changes, and they 're wavering. Here's a little warning to blue dogs. We voted for change. If you cannot do it because of your corporate contributions, then vote for public financing so you can't be bought. Otherwise we will go into your states and work to defeat you. If you are Democrats, stop acting like Republicans.
The President is doing well. He did an especially good job with the pirates. I diasagree with hom on the bailout of banks but I hope he succeeds.
The Preident's impediments over the next year are not going to be the republicans but the democrats.
I do not believe the President, Pelosi, and Reid are on the same page even when they want the same things. Their thinking on the way to get there on things such as healthcare will be different.
So will the democrats help a very popular President or look to their own interest and hamstring him.
The dems should have never put earmarks into a stimulus bill. They would have raised the hopes of all democrats, the President and the majority of Americans. But they just could not leave well enough alone.
Right now the democrats are beginning to do their own thing. Most GOP strategists are stating that the GOP is not Obama's 2012 opponent, he is running against Congressional democrats. And if they do not stop their actions, Obama will be elected but they might not be. If they can hold onto the majority it will be by slim margins in both houses. Already most believe that the GOP will pick up at least 20-25 seats in the House in 2010 and at least 5 seats in the Senate in 2012. So they burden of proof will be on Pelosi and Reid if they want to have their culture of change much longer.
Time for Brian Schweitzer to gain some visibility. He is a key figure nobody seems to know.
Brian Schweitzer, governor of Montana, was someone I did not know about until I saw him at the
Democratic convention in Denver last summer.
I was getting impatient at the number of speakers that night, and was about to nod off when a man with a cheerful demeanor took the microphone and brought down the house. It was Brian Schweitzer -and I was mesmerized by him. He had the timing of a seasoned comedian and used it to deliver a rousing speech about -energy. Wow!! What a great guy-smart, funny, impassioned, and visionary. Wish he were my governor!!
Two things: It's Rasumussen and secondly it's a 2% drop in Democratic party affiliation. Two percent is not the end of the world, particularly If there is not a corresponding 2% gain in the Republican party.
We can reasonably assume that 2% has become Independents.
The President has a 59% approval rating among Independents. Since the Democratic President works in conjunction with the Democrats in congress, while Independents may not have a Democratic party identification, their politics identifies with the Democratic agenda.
The 2% is relatively meaningless as well 'cos it's dropping democrats down to the level that they were at before the inaugurati
I would just like the incumbents to go. I will be just as happy if not more so if dem incumbents are defeated in the primaries.
Although Democrats have majorities in both Houses of Congress, many Democrat senators are in traditionally Republican, conservative states. They're not your Kennedy's, Kerry's or hopefully Franken's of the world.
So what will happen to the Republicans as the diehards coalesce around the philosophy of Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Rielly? They'll do their conservative lemmings plunge off the cliff with Palin. They just don't have it in them to pick a Mormon.
Not Palin? OK, then Pawlenty or Jindal. The far right keeps the party and goes over the cliff. They Whig out. All of a sudden there is a black hole on the right.
The Blue Dogs Democrat philosophy will attract the remaining moderate Republicans, fighting what they see is the good fight to control spending. Someone has to watch the store as the voices of reason in the conservative wilderness. They keep their seats and inherit Rockefeller's philosophy, as the ninnies of the right have failed to craft a policy to replace failed Reaganism powered by the anti-abortionists.
Obama has, through his even hand, captured those that want conservative leadership, if by his demeanor, not policies, the wingnuts excluded. The most contested Senatorial states are "pink" or "reddish". I don't think Obama's caved. He does not have the votes yet, to get the health care reform and must find them.
He has a good shot at that 60 votes (including the persnickety Blue Dogs) in 2010. Got to hold on. . See http://ele
Oh Drew, Democrats aren't the ones need help, its the Republicans. They' re about to vanish to thin air. Good riddance.
In your dreams. The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress from 1994 until 2006, yet I don't believe I heard anyone talking about the Democrats vanishing into thin air. A recent poll showed that by 7% points, people want smaller government and less spending, and in case you haven't noticed, that's not exactly Obama's agenda. Many Republicans and Independents were furious over the Republicans fiscal irresponsibility during the Bush years and sat home this election, but I I guarantee you they'll vote Republican again if the Dems continue with this unbelievable deficit spending. For a brief moment, the Democrats were actually talking about becoming the party of fiscal responsibility, but as is already obvious, it was just talk.
Hopefully if Republicans ever take power again they will be new faces. The last bunch turned into a tax and spend frenzy and not on national needs. But things local govts and state govt should pay for. The U.S. govt should not be funding a bridge to nowhere, tunnels in Boston, mob museum in vegas or a woodstock museum in New York
The people who still believe this complex world can be managed effectively with "smaller government and less spending" are living in la la land. We desperately need to wash that disasterous meme out of the minds of all Americans and accept that we not only need MORE GOVERNMENT AND MORE SPENDING - NOW (to get us out of this mess) we will need it for all time, and out need for a strong central govenment (with brains) will only increase as the world globilization and populations grow. Get over it.
Republicans will not vanish. They are currently vanquished, but they will eventually moderate and come back to greater power. Democrats lost power from 1992 to 2006 or so. Many people, just as short sightedly, thought the Democratic party was finished. Bush and Cheney's ineptitude put the country into the ditch (just like Bush's many business failures prior to entering politics), so the Democratic party has resurrected.
Such are the vicissitudes of politics. For everything there is a season, and this is the season for the ideals and values of Democrats. Sooner or later, just as the Republicans before them, they will be corrupted by their power and get too big for their britches and will be voted out. C'est la vie.
I'm often inclilned to say, "a pox on both their houses," but they are the only show in town. So, let's speak loudly and coherently to keep them in order as best we can.
I would not count my chickens before they are hatched. Determinations of who is elected in congress may rest on how the the bailed out companies do. Will they recover and create jobs? Will the jobs be here or overseas. Or will they just ask for more money. When next year's bonuses are announced it could hurt the democrats.
Also, many of us expected the troops to ben on their way home now or at least an exit strategy.
Hoever, I would like to see all incumbents challenged in their primaries. New bllood. New ideas. Nancy is trying to rule with an iron fist. I can see her and President Obama clashing at some point. Cannot get a read on lets give up Harry. But I hope he is defeated in the primaries
The Democrats have a monumental problem - they're hooked on special interest money almost as much as the GOP is. That means there's no fundamental difference in Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the key issues of our times - who wields political and economic power and whether political power can restrain economic power.
The Democrats are loathe to embrace campaign finance reform. They must embrace it wholeheartedly or be rendered irrelevant - again.
There is one thing that congress is too good at be they dems or repugs. That is the drawing of districts. This is probably the reason congress has become so partisan and certainly one of the reason we keep electing the same people. The boundaries should encomass whole cities or neighborhoods. Not like the drawsing of a 4 yr old with a magic marker and a clean sheet of paper.
Democrats need to articulate that we are the party of liberty, justice and the greatest good for the greatest number.
That translates into good pay for good work. That also translates into having a share in a company’s profits.
The number of high school dropouts is a threat to our economic stability. The failure to train adequate numbers to go into high-demand, high paying jobs poses a threat to our national security as well.
Economic justice means proportional taxation on the movement of all moneys –not just a “progressive” rate on earned income. Exemptions, deductions, credits are a ruse to make “progressive rates” regressive. These destroy any semblance of fairness. Eliminate those, and a proportional rate could be substantially lower for everyone, and still put more money into the treasury.
Universal health care is a necessary component of national security. A bioterrorist attack could set off an epidemic that could seriously imperial our national security. Universal health care is a greatest good for the greatest number principle. It's also a matter of self-preservation.
Democrats need to point out that Republican ideology is rooted and grounded in feudalism. “Free market” and “deregulation” are simply 21st century terms for divine rights. The lord of the manor is free to do whatever he wants – to hell with the serfs. That’s the Republican mindset and the mindset of most CEOs of large corporations.
Alot would happen if congress bought their own insurance much like the entrepeneur or the small business. Want schools to be better. Insist on congress sending their children to public school.
Workers can share in a company two ways. They can buy stock and if their company performs well or not their stock price would refect it. If you are speaking of bonuses. If business is good then great give a bonus. But if it stagnates or drops should not the employees be pay back their last year's bonus
Hey part of Obama's charm is that he is not NEGATIVE. Not pointing finger, forgiving all. AND he is taking ACTION. While at first I bought the line that Dems need to speak up - reflection showed me that Dems need action not words - not standing up and shouting "Hey, I'm with HIM!" but taking action - what bills are they pushing, what policies are they creating? What solutions are they offering? Our Dems in office need to follow along behind Obama - or better yet - beside Obama - but not in words, in deeds! One of the rules of communication is to get people to listen, lower your voice. Speak quietly and carry big sticks!!!! Get stuff done!
Heh, heh, heh, Obama, gaining ground? I don't' think so! In fact I know he is NOT gaining ground! Just look at the lies he told during his campaign! And the people are getting tired of it! He was going to work across the aisle, he was going to cut taxes for 95% of the people.... Excuse me, look at all the EXTRA TAXES the states are putting on because of him! He was going to make sure the American people read every bill and had 24 hours to do it before congress votes on it, HAHAHAHAHA!heAnd now he IS going ahead with the same plan that Bush had on secret wiretapping! OH, sure he is the man of CHANGE all right!
Dems are all wet right now! I think they are peeing in their pants as they are getting more and more scared of what the 'change' really did bring them!
Wow, have you been feeding at the Koolaid trough. States are raising taxes because they've been starved of any financial assistance from the Feds for the last eight years while being saddled with costly new programs that they had to put into practice (NCLB, anyone?) Federal income taxes are going up to Reagan era levels for 5% (or less!) of the people. You keep right on mouthing the same old tired lies being spouted on Fox and other corporate mouthpieces that are irrelevant. More than 2/3rds of the country recognize that we have an adult in charge for a change.
States always raise taxes when the feds cut them.... The state of Ohio raised taxes 50% over the course of the Republican controlled congress for a decade... You can blame Bush for his inability to spend money at home, but send it all abroad.
If we stopped giving money to every country in the world maybe there would be some to spend at home. Has no heard that we are raising by (by maybe as much as 3 times) the amount of money we are giving to Pakistan. Can we get no one to do the right thing without paying them? Fed taxes should come down if we stopped giving every country money and brought home the troops. Fed funding in states should have never been started. Because once we get used to the money and programs and we have heart attacks if the feds cut the amt they are giving the states. The interstate commerce act has been thrown out the window. The feds have blackmailed the states for years saying pass this law or we will cut federal aid of some kind. Generally the highway fund taxes. No telling how many state bill were passed reluctantly because we wanted federal money. It is nothing but blackmail. worst of all it is the state money' that was collected in the states and sent to the feds who then redistribute the money based on who has been good or who has been naughty. People tend to blame Presidents. The people to blame are in congress. Let us replace the incumbent. You do not even have to change parties. Just run someone else against the incumbent in the primary
Why is it you neocons always have to go for the grade school potty talk? "Peeing in their pants." Really, I can see you don't have much in the way of articulate argumentation but please try for a little class.
Excellent post! It is so important to do what we can to support the democrats and explain to those who do not follow politics closely, why Obama and the democrats are doing what they're doing. Talk to people. Even Republicans. Listen, but also stand up for the values we represent. Some people who call themselves Republicans actually share a lot of Democratic values, but have been swayed by the "bumper-sticker" responses of the Republicans which are then echoed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh as well as the main stream media.
And we need to defend leaders in Congress when they make a stupid mistake (like Dodd.) that could negate an entire career. It would be tragic if Dodd loses his seat and its up to each and every one us to make sure that doesn't happen. The Republicans are gunning for him and other seats in Congress and we must avoid what happened to Clinton in the mid-term elections of 1992.
We have no message in the Media, for all we see and hear is the disgusting FEAR, SMEAR AND HATE party, day in and day out. The Corporate Media have down the Republicant talking points to a tee.
The Republicans and their Media are their own worst enemies!
The Poll error could explain the 2% change so this is overreaction to NOTHING!
But here is something to legitimately be concerned:
CBS Report: Wall Street Spent $5 Billion For Political Influence
http://www
Right NOW Wall Street OWNS our Government Paying:
1. Average of $7.5 Million to each Senator every 4 years!
2. Average of $1.86 Million to each House Member every 4 years!
3. During Campaign Obama took the Early Lead in Wall Street Funds: $479,209 with GS and UBS the Biggest!
http://dea
PROTECT OUR Congress Members Votes:
Funnel all Political Contributions through a Government Contribution Cleansing and Funds Distribution Agency that uses strict formulas for allocating funds blindly to Politicians so their votes are NOT purchased! Fairness for New potential Members (No incumbent advantages for voting record)!
Main Street gets NO LOBBY SUPPORT while Wall Street is rewarded for their FAILURES and CORRUPTION!
President Obama's style is to attack "Greed and Corruption" without investigating it or prosecuting it and this is a massive FLAW that he will regret in time as it rises again!
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